Just a little scribble that could probably be a comic if I didn’t think that whatever was going on here is probably not funny. Can’t help but think that this drawing means something, but it’s hard to articulate what that might be. I certainly was not trying to draw anything like this.
It’s the purest form of love there is: the love between a baby dragon and its parent.
Happy Valentine’s Day, whether you hate people or not.
I am trying to love people.
This was a pretty simple piece. I used Sharpie for the black parts (excluding the eyes), which saves a lot of time. I sort of wanted to make the chest part rainbow, but I also sort of wanted to go home, and home won. From a technical perspective it’s not one of my most amazing boards, but from an aesthetic point of view (particularly the aesthetic point of view of an elementary school student) it’s a raging success.
As I adding the stapled details some third graders came to admire my work and asked me what the dragons’ names were. I told them to feel free to name the dragons themselves.
One girl said, “The baby’s name is Shadow.”
So her friend decided, “The big dragon is Midnight.”
Shadow and Midnight. Names that work equally well for black cats as red dragons, apparently.
I think this picture speaks for itself. Rawr.
My mother and I took my brother’s kids to the art museum, where they had tables set up for kids to do crafts. The suggested activity was to create a replica of a striking painting of a church using cut paper. Obviously, we did not do anything like that. I made this dragon silhouette flying across a rainbow sunset. One of the kids is super artistic, and he picked up a pencil drew a very good picture of a chubby dude in a La-Z-Boy. One of the kids isn’t artistic at all, but he drew an accurate picture of a video game controller. And then the little one took my idea of the rainbow strips, but instead of a dragon silhouette, she added an insane and possibly sentient piece of pizza out of colored paper.
My mother talked with the employee who was staffing the table until said employee very abruptly announced she was going to go stand somewhere else and relocated to another table.
I just realized that this image kind of mirrors the late, great mosaic table I made in the ’90s.
I’m finishing up a lengthy editing job and working on my big project, which is coming along apace. I’m also thinking about 2 upcoming scholarly comic projects in which I’d like to participate, once for a forthcoming anthology of Bonnie Jo Campbell criticism to which I was invited to contribute, and the other is for a forthcoming anthology about comics in academia.
Technically speaking, knight errant must be free-range by definition.
Back when I was single, after the invention of the internet, but before newspapers seemed completely obsolete, I placed a personal ad in the local alternative rag, which included an anonymous voice mailbox where my suitors might woo me by recording spoken word messages, to be retrieved at my leisure. I ended up dating the glibbest of these guys for a year, and still talk to him occasionally, but most of the wooers failed to wow me with their woo. One of them failed really spectacularly.
His message began by saying that he was a vegetarian, which was actually fine with me. At the time, I was a vegetarian, too. But this guy was very passionate about his vegetarianism, to the point that his entire message was about how important it was to him that he never find himself in the vicinity of meat, and how disgusting meat was, and how he could never date someone who ate meat because the smell of it, the idea of it upon his lover’s lips, was overwhelmingly vile. He spent so long complaining about his distaste for meat and meat-eaters that the voice message cut him off in the middle of the sentence. Undeterred, he called back and continued his tirade for several minutes more.
Needless to say, he did not get the callback.
As to this comic, I just keep thinking of Temple Grandin saying, “Nature is cruel, but we don’t have to be.”
If I felt better I would have taken the shading further (like, but making the tower look cylindrical instead of 2-dimensional) but you can see I tried. I really tried.
Rage comics: Dragon style
Originally, I sketched this one out with Dragon talking to Dragon’s reflection in the mirror, but ultimately, the backgrounds seem to make this one for me.
The last couple weeks have been leading up to this moment, and there will be more fallout down the line. At heart what this is really about (and many readers probably understand this in their hearts) is the tendency of some people to devalue their own outrage. The belief that we do not have the right to be angry is a pervasive one, particular among women, and often this legitimate anger is funneled through some other channel. You may have heard the expression, “Depression is anger turned inward.”
Dragon is embracing the anger and saying that it’s OK to be angry.
Besides that, I’m rather pleased with the typewriter in panel 4. This follows the discussion of funny weapons. The Man still thinks typewriters are inherently humorous. Plus, using the typewriter offered the opportunity for a punny punchline. The snake doesn’t need to get the last word in, and the sentiment, “words hurt!” is a lot more powerful when accompanied by a projectile weapon that is used, generally, for the purpose of forming words. Anyway, Dragon throws a typewriter would be a good name for a punk band.
Bonus news: RedBubble is offering a site-wide 15% off coupon code for T-shirts. There’s never been a better time to purchase a Dragon shirt, or other fine QWERTYvsDvorak designs. Just check out our web shop and use coupon code RBTEES15 any time before midnight Tuesday for great savings.
Happy 100 blog posts to me!
Ooohh…cake…
I’m curious about how the above image came to be, since it’s not at all what I intended to draw. In hindsight, the thing I was going to draw would work better as a Valentine, so I’ll just save it. Plus, I can reuse the cake image if/when I get to 100 Dragon Comics! Anyway, 100 blog posts. A couple hundred pieces of art. It’s something! Yes! It’s not nothing.
To celebrate this milestone accomplishment, here’s some more of what I do. We’ve got mandalas!
An early plant-based design.
The first couple dozen mandalas I did in this series were drawn on the flip side of the crossword pages hubby used to print out every day, but we’re rapidly reaching the end of these. When I started to take the project a bit more seriously, I used fresh paper without an image bleeding through the other side.
Beautifully blue
As I’ve mentioned before, my “blue period” was about 30 years long. Usually, I make a conscious decision to not draw everything in blue. But sometimes it’s nice to get back to your roots.
And speaking of roots, here’s a lovely dragon for your pleasure.
Crustofer, a Microscopic Aquatic Dragon
I think I’m more pleased with Crustofer’s appellation than his image, although he’s a cute little dragon. I guess a microscopic aquatic dragon would be considered a cryptozooplankton?
There you have it. Dragons and mandalas. As always, if you think my work doesn’t completely suck, please consider shopping my store. Stickers and notecards are only a couple dollars, and while the clothes may run a couple bucks more than in other T-shirt shops, the money does go to support an artist. If you’d like a T-shirt featuring any work on this site that isn’t in the store, drop me a line and, if I can, I’ll get it onto a shirt for you. If you’d rather buy a book off Amazon, you could also support me by clicking any book link on my Amazon Affiliate book review site. You don’t have to buy that particular book; any book you buy after clicking one of my links will refer a small percentage back to me and I will be one step closer to my goal of making money more or less on my own terms. Otherwise, I will have to go back to copywriting, and believe me, no one wants that.
For your consideration, a brief gallery of potentially enlightening or confusing images.
Hissteria, a confounding dragon. I suspect that Hissteria mesmerizes you, and then eats you.
There is something very pleasing to me about this dragon’s dimensionality and weirdness. I can see her twisting in the wind, like those flying snakes that turn their bodies into sails, except Hissteria is more of a corkscrew. As you squint at her spiraling form, asking your spouse, “What is that thing? Do you see it? What is it?” Hissteria strikes, devouring you headfirst. Or maybe she’s just misunderstood.
A well-formed mandala
Here’s your weekly mandala; this is a fairly regular one, with hints of traditional quilt design along with some of the crystal theme that I examine more later.
A small percentage of the mandalas in this collection were pieces I worked on a bit but never felt satisfied with. I never threw any out, but there are some that certainly feel unfinished, and also at a dead end. This is one of them:
Actually, something about it feels kind of subatomic to me. This mandala is not as disappointing as it originally seemed.
If Cox took all the energy they direct into trying to sell me cable and long distance for 2 devices I don’t even own and devoted it to maintaining the network that renders the device I do own fully functional, this post would not be so late.
For your Friday pleasure, please browse an assortment of 3D dragons, I models with my own little hands.
Dragon number 1 sprung forth into existence some 2 or 3 years ago when a game-maker friend mentioned that 4 little lumps of clay were reserved for the construction of a dragon figurine to be used in a game she had created. I took control of the project and came up with this handsome fellow, Perhaps his details are a little rough, but he’s only 1 inch high, and my hands aren’t that small.
It took 4 shots to encompass all his adorable qualities.
Next on our list we have a rather old dragon. In 1993, student teaching at a private elementary school for hippie children with rich grandparents, I came across a lump of dried clay, in which I couldn’t help but see the whorls and angles of a dragon’s face. The principal told me that I was wasting my time, that the lump would crumble, that it was too thick to ever be fired. I ignored him and coaxed this friendly face into the world.
A rather serene dragon, with only a little chip missing from his horn.
Finally, completing our triumvirate of dragons, a dragon pendant I made in 2006 while playing with my ex-boyfriend’s daughter.
Of course, the fuchsia fellow on the right is actually a cat, not a dragon, but he came into existence at the same time as the dragon, and they are the best of friends and go everywhere together.
Wait, what’s that you say? You want a hardworking bubblegum punk mandala before you go. BAM. Enjoy.
Pentagram mandala is in the house!
In case you wondered what Dragon is up to, Dragon is doing well, thanks! I already have one comic for next week, and if I finish a second one this weekend, maybe I’ll try to create them on a M-W-F schedule.
Three cheers for insomnia! Weirding up my world since 1977. This is the comic that Dragon deserves, but not the one that Dragon needs.
Is this a webcomic? Everything is confusing when your brain forgets to power down once in a while.
Truthfully, silencing my demons is a full time job. This comic is OK. The lettering is influenced by my lack of sleep. Sorry about that first word bubble. Too tired to see straight. If only someone would buy some T-shirts, I might have more time to write better comics.
The world wants a little cheering up today, and these unconventional dragons are happy to serve their purpose.
Grizeldi, a Dragon Boat. Grizeldi is a working dragon
I was a working dragon myself today. Still retaining a couple freelance writing clients enables me to bang out words in exchange for money. Writing is my especial talent, just as cutting through the glacial blue waters of the Norwegian fjords is Grizeldi’s. He takes pride in his sturdy wooden construction and his ability to transport a heavy cargo of pillage, plunder, and loot.
Portia, a Hoarding Dragon. Portia’s hoard is a small one, as she is a small dragon and has not had much time to accumulate it, but it is a high quality hoard.
Meanwhile, Portia slumbers upon a bed of gold pieces. Dragons require a great deal of rest.
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